Five

Back in 2008 when I was in China for the first time, my little 18 month old son seemed so small that to think he would someday turn five seemed like some far-off, futuristic time. Well, the day has arrived. Caleb is five years old today. He's turning into quite a young man. While he is a big fan of Diego, dinosaurs, Cars, great white sharks and such, this year, all the talk was about a certain "beach ambulance" that he was really hoping for. (Note: I do not really know what a beach ambulance is. We were shopping in the store one day and looking in the toy section and he saw this vehicle that had lights and sirens and was pulling a cart that said "HIGH TIDE." He loved it. But when he asked me what it was, all I could think of was, "uh, that's a beach ambulance!" And so it stuck.)

This year, we held a housewarming party/birthday party since we had just moved into our new house. We were so blessed by friends and family who visited and who helpedus celebrate our new home and Caleb's birthday. People were so thoughtful and giving and he was happy with everything. We waited three days (until his actual birthday) to celebrate with our small family with pizza and a few presents. While I love celebrating with other people, I'm also really happy to have our family together. And when I hear, "aw....thanks Mom! I love you!" it makes my whole year. Suddenly, these birthdays seem to come around all too quickly....

Party with friends....

Owen, with one of the housewarming gifts from our party--

our new "housepet" that we named Bowen.....

Party at home with family.....

The coveted "beach ambulance"

Starting School

The school year has begun and this year, both boys are attending preschool. Caleb is in a PreK program at a new school this year and Asher started preschool with our local school district. Caleb is not yet five, but technically qualifies to go to kindergarten. We opted to keep him out for one more year, however, for him to gain one more year of speech before starting. We signed Asher up for his preschool program this spring, and although I initially thought that maybe he wasn't ready, the last several months, the idea has really grown on me. Then, last week after meeting his teacher and visiting his classroom, his early intervention specialist told me there had been a mistake and he would have to wait because he was not yet three. We were so disappointed! I hadn't realized how much I was liking the idea of him starting. But then, his fabulous teacher made a few calls and determined that yes, he really was eligible to start with the rest of his class! We were thankful, much so because then he can learn the ropes with everyone else at the same time, rather than starting a month later.

While Caleb was pretty excited about his school and enjoyed his classroom, I'm not sure that Asher has really gotten the significance of his school transition. But for me, it is a great success story. Here is a child that, 17 months ago, I had a difficult time taking in public, anywhere, because he became so overstimulated. He has really needed to spend significant time at home to understand the difference a family makes. And now, he has blossomed and is ready to go!

Pink Has Entered the House!

We aren't really huge about pink around here. Well, not up until now, that is. Being surrounded by men in our home, including my husband, two sons and my dog, we're more about earth tones, dirt, sports, zoo animals, cars, trains and the like. So, when I went shopping to send a care package to Ellie, I was pretty excited to look for girl things. Little girl pajamas, dresses, shoes, hair bows...so fun! I don't know how to raise a girl...in fact I've been researching things like tights and tutus, of all things. Call it preparation, whatever. I'm so looking forward to this new member of our family!

I think perhaps a few people were surprised when we announced that we were adopting Ellie. There is a story behind it, which includes me, at one time, saying that we were done. We had been home with Asher for a few months, I had only been home as a full-time mom for a few months longer and we just weren't in that place. One day, I was working on a writing project related to adoption and was looking for some information about special needs, so I went to the Rainbow Kids website, which has some great articles, some of which are written by adoptive parents. Of course, I started thinking about it all again--I still love China adoption and truly believe in it, but we were in no way ready to go down that road again. I did mentionit to Russ, who basically laughed at me. Fast forward a few months and I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. I was thinking of a girl....a daughter...but how could we do that? One day, we heard a sermon at church about Hesed, faithfulness to that which the Lord calls us. I couldn't get this out of my mind, but was God really looking for faithfulness from us through adoption? Again? We came home and Russ told me the same things I had been thinking....what are we being faithful to? Ourselves? Should we go back? Is there a girl?

So, we decided to start again, although we weren't really forthcoming by telling others about it. The wait is so very long at times, and it really hadn't been terribly long since we were home with Asher. So, we completed our homestudy, had our background checks, did our physicals, and basically set everything in motion. We really thought it would be a long time, too. With the boys, we waited a total of 13 months from beginning to end, each time. Actually, that isn't too long overall when compared with the times of some other families. Usually, though, if you decide that you are open to either a boy or a girl, you may get a boy referral first. For some reason, there are more of those sweet, special needs boys in China who need families, I don't know why. So, we have experience adopting boys. We have never waited for a girl, though, and we really just didn't know what to expect.

We were fingerprinted and processed and certifying and authenticating all while we were trying to sell our house. I have mentioned that our house sale was a true gift--because at one time we weren't sure if we should even sell or not. And, we were thinking of renting or just moving to an even smaller place temporarily, all because we still didn't know how much longer we would have to wait before we could go to China again. Honestly, it was a dark time, those months of trying to sell our house. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it is something of a roller coaster of hoping that someone will buy, but feeling sad about leaving a house that we loved, and also wondering where to move to and how to cover everything. It was a hard process. I have said that I even got to the point where I had accepted the fact that we were probably staying in our house for another year.....maybe it didn't even matter because we didn't have a referral, right? But then, we did sell, and it went fast! Suddenly, we knew we were moving and we needed a place! I was glad to be at the end of our roller coaster and we started trying to decide where we should move.

Three days after we signed our papers, the phone rang and it was our adoption agency. The gal calling introduced herself and asked if I had a few minutes to talk? Even if I didn't I would have made the time, I had a pretty good idea of why she was calling. She wanted to talk to us about a little girl in China and ask us if we would be interested in looking at her pictures and her file. We said yes and so she emailed us the information so we could think about it.

It really did not take much thinking, although Russ and I tried to do the responsible thing and peruse all of the lab results, check out her pictures, read her history and try to look up as much information as we could. We said yes, of course, because I knew when I saw her picture, that sweet little face, she's the one.

We named her Ellie, although her full, English name will be Mary Ellen Yu. The "Yu" comes from a name of the province where she is currently living. She is now 15 months old, lives in foster care and has hearing loss, so we have been making some preparations for testing when she gets here. We have been praying that she will make a smooth transition, although who isn't at least a little traumatized by leaving the foster family/orphanage you've lived in for your entire life to go with some family who looks nothing like you, doesn't speak your language and eats weird food? It can be difficult, as we've seen with both boys. So, we aren't expecting everything to be sunshine and roses, in fact, we're expecting a lot of tears and some difficult adjustments. Maybe we'll be happily surprised if it isn't as bad as we pictured.

But anyway, this baby girl is now waiting to join our family and we are waiting for her. I sent her the care package in hopes that she will have a few things of her own and to share with her current family. Additionally, sending this package gives them a heads up that she has a family. We were told that foster families aren't always notified until travel approval is issued for the adopting family, roughly a month before leaving. So, we wanted to give them time to prepare their hearts for her to say good-bye, and we wanted her to have some pictures so she will know a little bit of what to expect. Maybe it will give her some comfort to see that she will have Chinese brothers!

LID is here!

Ok, so I am adding this quick post to say that today we received our log-in-date (LID) for Ellie! I know I haven't really posted about her adoption much yet....and I will...soon. The LID is the point where China receives our paperwork and it officially goes "on the books" as being in line for processing. It's a big step, at least for those of us in the China adoption world. Until this point, it is all just waiting. And now we face, well, more waiting. But at least we know that China knows who we are and we are being processed. Hooray! More to come soon....

Up at 5 with Coffee

Ok, so it has been way too long since I have posted anything here. We're talking nothing yet in 2011 at all! So it is the way things are going around this place. I've always been busy and it isn't as if there is nothing to say.

So, I'm going to start anew, sort of, or at least continue onward and try to catch up. I have realized that I miss journaling here and with everything going on in our lives, I want to have a place to keep track.

It is 5am and I'm awake. With coffee. Although I am a morning person, I do not normally relish these early mornings when I am only awake because I can't sleep. It reminds me too much of my years as a nurse when I was only awake because it was my work shift. Instead of having my first cup of coffee for the day, it was my 10th, and instead of just waking up because my dog is snoring next to my bed, I would have been awake all night. I don't miss those days (nights) much at all.

I'm a stay at home mom and have been now for over 1 1/2 years. My kids are 4 and 2, soon to be 5 and 3. They both have birthdays coming up and they keep me really busy. They both are Chinese and were both born with cleft lip and palate. We adopted them two years apart and have been home with Asher since March 2010. This is how time flies. When we came home with Ash, we both thought, that is it, we are done. We have two wonderful boys and we are blessed. We were happy and truly very busy. I spend a lot of time caring for them, taking them to speech therapy and other lessons and I work from home as a writer. So sometimes I do find myself awake at 5 am and it's not always a bad thing--it's peace and quiet.

Up until 3 weeks ago, we lived in a small, 2-bedroom home--our first house that we loved. Ok, I loved it when we first bought it and for many years of living there, but then it became cramped. Perhaps it is because it used to be just Russ and I. Then, we added Owen, our dog, who really doesn't take up too much room. We brought Caleb home to that house in 2008 and then, two years later, Asher. Even before we adopted Asher, we thought of moving but decided against it because it just didn't seem like the right time. Then, once we were home from China, we didn't realize how close of quarters it would be with two kids. But we didn't feel we could move yet, what with just returning from traveling across the world and managing a new 18 month old in the family.

Once we decided to move, we were so excited to think about a new house but we also realized how difficult it would be. We had waited a year past the first-time home buyer stimulus that may have brought a buyer in for us. Instead, we waited for it to sell but we sometimes weren't sure that it would because it seemed, well, small. Once, after an unsuccessful open house, our realtors mentioned that there was one retired couple who was looking at it and who they thought might be interested. The couple instead said they were retiring and moving to the area, but no, the house was too small. Our realtors asked them about what line of work they were retiring from. They were overseas missionaries! So, even for someone retiring from a career of living in a developing country, our house was suddenly too small. We wondered if it would sell.

As the end of our contract grew closer, we started to think that maybe we were meant to stay. Maybe we should wait and sell it ourselves next year? We thought we could save on paying real estate fees and although we were squeezed, we could try again later. After several months of getting a last-minute call for a showing and then running around trying to clean and get everyone out of the house for 1/2 hour so someone could see it along with 10 other houses in the area, we were getting tired. So, we resigned ourselves to that. And it wasn't all that bad. I had been praying about it all as the months went by and I had gotten to the point that either God wanted me to give up thinking so much about this house and its trials or that we were really just supposed to stay for a while longer.

The last weekend of our contract, Memorial Day weekend, we decided to go camping. We knew that once we got back, we could take a break from trying to sell. The Friday before the holiday weekend, we got a call that someone wanted to see the place. Fine. A lot of people had seen it, it didn't mean much to us. The next day, as we were leaving town for our camping trip, we got a call from our agent that the person who had seen the house wanted to see it again. We would be out of town anyway, so why not? We weren't too sure about any of it at all and we knew that once we got back from our trip, the whole thing would probably be over for a while. Instead, we came home to an offer on the house. Suddenly, we were selling! We had to quickly change our mindsets--for so long living while wondering if we were staying or if we were going, and we were going!

I did wonder, for a brief time, what it all meant. I was trying to find some meaning in it, maybe that is foolish, but that is how I am wired. Why get to the point where we knew we would be OK to stay in our house for another year only to have it sell so quickly? I didn't quite understand. But then, three days after our sale, we got a phone call from our adoption agency with some news.....and then, it started to make some sense to me. But I'll leave that for another post.

Suffice it to say that I love living in our new house. We actually bought it quickly after our other had sold. We took six weeks to close and we moved in the middle of July. Oh, how I love it here! There is so much more room, a wonderful backyard, an upstairs, a master bathroom (!) and even floors that do not creak so that when I get up at 5am and head downstairs, I don't wake anyone up. That's a feat that wasn't possible one short month ago. Yes, I'm so thankful for this house. It is a perfect fit for us and we love it. I can totally see us raising our boys and our soon-to-be-home daughter, living here.